Through a Stranger's Eyes

by Steven S Walsky

  Chapter Six

  Back at work on Monday I felt as if the weekend, no, the past week, was a blur of thoughts and feelings and I was still sorting those feelings out when the phone rang; it was Fred; Donna's boyfriend. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing really, I’m going to be in your neighborhood this morning looking at some property the company is thinking about leasing. You want to meet for lunch, about twelve?”

  “Sounds good, you know my building?”

  “Donna told me how to get there. I’ll be all the way across the street, but she’s not sure if I can walk from one building to the other without getting lost.”

  “Don’t take it personal, Donna has little faith in the brain power of men.”

  “I asked her how she thought I got this old without her assistance and her response was wit sharp enough to cut steel. Not sure if it was meant to be that way.”

  I could tell he was perplexed at Donna’s reaction and, even if it was not posed as one, he was asking a question. Yet I did not want to interfere in their relationship, so I had to measure my response, “You pushed a button with the word ‘old’.” Okay, so I was not very tactful; I was blunt and blunt seemed appropriate.

  Walking through the indoor shopping complex Fred was impressed, “I never knew there was so much in this place. Damn, we have one lousy little deli and a ‘connivance’ store that carries just about everything an elephant or a complete moron needs to be ‘convenient’ happy.”

  I laughed, “We have everything you need for a great day in this subterranean Kasbah. I’ll have to show you the dollar store that sells nothing much more than paper plates, plastic cups, and six-year-old paperback books. Which, by the way, look as if they spent most of their previous lives in restrooms.”

  “The books or paper plates?”

  “Good. You’re going to need that attitude with Donna. Just don’t expect to win much at playing the points game; cause she is, at a minimum, state championship-level competition.”

  We were sitting in the food court, having bought lunch at one of the takeaways. I was purposely being open about their relationship. I liked Fred and I felt he was good for Donna. We had met only two times; once when I bumped into them at the grocery store, and when then the three of us had met at the Page & Cup for coffee. Fred was truly friendly each time, yet I could not help but sense his questioning of the relationship between Donna and myself. He was much better at keeping such things to himself than I was. Changing the direction of the conversation, I asked, “So, y’all taking the space?”

  “Yes.” Referring to my ‘y’all,’ “South?”

  “Sometimes the South slips in. Have to do a y’all every now and then so people don’t mistake a cold for a New Jersey or New York regionalism.”

  Fred stabbed the last of his french-fries, “I’m from San Jose and came East after I got out of the Air Force; been here ever since. What did Donna say about you, or I should say one of the many things she has said about you, ‘But always south of the Mason-Dixon Line.’” Fred had opened the door and I was not surprised by his next comment, “Can I be...Dave, look you don’t have to answer this, but, you and Donna?”

  Even though I was not surprised, I was not prepared to answer that question so quick in the conversation. The fact he asked was important, because he cared about what was developing between them. “We are like sister and brother, best friends with years of sharing each other’s ups and downs. But Donna is her own woman and we live separate lives; besides...Fred, Donna is a wonderful woman, a beautiful woman that I care about like a sister. But, she is her own woman; strong willed, determined, and sometimes her thought power is down-right scary. I appreciate you asking that.” I did appreciate him being so forthright, and I sensed he asked because he wanted Donna more than anything. Had I sensed anything else, I would have been in a quandary. Big brother talk is one thing, but interfering in Donna’s love life was a wholly different matter.

  Nevertheless, the entire lunch thing went well and I never let Fred know that I would not have been surprised if Donna was the one who suggested lunch. ‘Surprise’ was a word that seemed to be at the core of Donna’s personality. I have always felt that Donna needed someone who could bring a measure of conservatism to her life. A man who would be able to take her his arms and say enough is enough; not with words per say, but with tenderness. I needed the same from a woman. Breen brought that measure of conservatism to the table, a trait that made Breen different from Donna. But this trait unfortunately, to some extent for my friends made Breen appear wrong for me. Take Kris for instance. She would just love for me to announce I was an item with Donna, “The two of you are so compatible, friends destined to be lovers.” But that’s because Kris has never seen me mad at Donna; has never seen me throw my hands in the air and scream ‘I give up!’ Has never seen the way Donna can slam a door on me when she can not make me admit she is right. I knew our friends would think the same about Fred and Donna. I could not fault them, because I knew Donna better than they would ever know her. And, of course she is a mirror of my own hopes and dreams.

  The conversation with Fred started the old brain to travel down memory lane. How long ago did I make that first trip to New York to see Donna? It now seems a thousand years ago when the Saturday morning newspaper had slammed against my porch like a six pack slamming into the sidewalk having just fallen from a third floor balcony party; not the same sound, but the same effect: ‘oh, shit.’ To some people I knew when I first met Donna, losing the contents of a six pack was akin to breaking a mirror. You hear the impact and instantly feel it at the same time. Yes, glass and a slab of newsprint do not make the same sound to your ears, but it was none the less a harbinger of ‘life interruption.’ I felt the impact as the paper thudded to a stop. Impact was waiting on page D1, second column, half way down the page.

  “Hello?”

  “Donna, it’s Dave.”

  “Dave! What do I owe this honor to? You win the lottery and calling to rescue me from adulthood...from having to toil away, day after day, some nights, some weekends, even a holiday or two, not that I am complaining, mind you.”

  “Hi Donna, it’s POOR Dave, not your dad. Remember when you asked why I never take you out to dinner? Well I have decided you’ve waited long enough. How about this Friday night?”

  “You’re coming to New York! Great and I know just the place you’re taking me! What time?”

  I mocked tears, “I knew you would be elated, but I thought it would be my presence alone that would cause the dance of joy, the excitement, the...actually I thought dinner would be secondary and only used it as an opener.”

  “Don’t get all weepy on me. Of course I’m excited you’re FINALLY coming to New York...I’m elated, excited...that better?”

  “That’s much better.”

  “So when will you pick me up for dinner?”

  “So much for ‘Dave, Dave, Dave when are you going to stop writing and get your ass up to the Big Apple?’ Where are we going to eat?”

  “It’ll be a surprise; just bring a non-maxed out credit card and a suit.”

  “This isn’t a deli, I assume.”

  “That’s a ROGER, 10-4 good buddy. You’re going to enjoy the experience. Besides, I’m worth it!”

  “Don’t you want to know why I am coming to your neck of the woods?”

  “Sure, all joking aside, I really am excited to have you up here. Why the trip and how long you staying?” “Randy gets sentenced on Friday afternoon.”

  “Serious?”

  “Serious as a heart attack.”

  “Damn. When you find out?”

  “Yesterday’s paper. Carla called before I got a chance to see the article. But, something just felt wrong when I heard the paper hit the porch; you know me and my premonitions.”

  “How’s Carla taking the news?”

  “This is like the anticlimax to a three year-long Ionesco play. She wants me to
be there for her and of course I will. She waits forever for the hammer to drop, and when it finally does, it’s still a shock moment.”

  “Look, let’s do this right. Call me when you get in. Let’s not plan anything big for Friday night...you will be here for Saturday, right?”

  “You have me all day and all night if you want me.”

  “Ummm, does your mom know about us...no, don’t answer or I will feel obligated to call her and say how sorry I am having corrupted little Davie. Where you staying so I know where to send you back in a cab should you get drunk and really think you’re spending the night with me?”

  “In mid-town, I’ll let you know as soon as I make reservations. I plan to drive back Sunday afternoon.”

  “How much time do you think Randy will get?”

  “Not enough, the article said minimum of twenty, but possibly longer based on the sentencing phase testimony.”

  “Please don’t applaud when the sentence is read. I hate that.”

  “Why not, lawyers need emotional support like everyone else.”

  Randy was a liar, a cheat at cards, a cheat at marriage, stupid as a bowl of corn flakes, and the type of guy who would drink from your beer when your back was turned and proposition your wife when you went to the restroom. Carla, my late aunt’s only child is sweet and, at least in love, dumber. She fell for Randy, married him, moved to New York State with him, and spent the next two years earning the family paycheck, while Randy spent his free time at the horse track and chatting up the ladies. Six days before their second anniversary Randy takes off “looking for a job” in West Virginia, not alone, but with a girl he met the night before.

  When Randy returns, “too cold in that place, snow, ice...like it was in the mountains,” he is flush with cash and holds a session for his friends at a bar. Prior to his trip, Randy bought a gun from someone, I suspected Gaven; a big frame SW .357 Magnum. As tragic stories go, Randy is at this bar showing off the gun and asks his girlfriend to show the boys how the big frame looks in her small hands. Unfortunately Randy “forgot to tell her the gun was loaded” and his new flame found out in front of six witnesses when she grabbed the gun by its barrel and yanked it out of Randy’s hand. Randy also forgot to tell her his finger was in the trigger. With no close family, Carla turns to me for support; and I spent several weeks going back and forth to New York to be with her at the trial.

  If you’re wondering why he gets thirty years from the judge, realize Randy is not bright; he had used the gun in a string of robberies in West Virginia. “You mean the State cops talk to each other?” Oh, his girlfriend was identified as the lookout waiting in the car. The icing on the cake was when several witnesses of the shooting testified that Randy had told them earlier that day that he was becoming worried about her because she was scared they would get caught, and had commented, “why not just pop her and find a new bitch.” The defense tried to get the jury to believe Randy was talking about his married life and ‘pop’ was a euphemism for ‘smack’ as in ‘I should give her a smack on the rear end and send her packing.’

  The trial itself was not very long, but Carla seemed to age a year for each week. The whole deal had taken twenty-eight months to play out from arrest to sentencing. Aside from looking older, Carla took this last court appearance in stride; she had divorced him, paid off a good chunk of her debt because Randy wasn’t spending the money, and was very thankful Randy had a Public Defender. When the judge read the sentence I did not clap, but I did walk up and personally thank Randy’s Public Defender.

  Donna asked a concerned, “How’d it go?”

  “Short answer, thirty years, possible parole in never, and West Virginia is looking at him for multiple armed robberies. And Carla, she’s doing fine. Something in her eyes tells me there is a new man in her life.”

  It’s Friday evening and we are in a café somewhere south of Houston Street. It’s kind of a screwy place, unless of course if you like plastic forks. Café Farina, I kid you not. What an original name! Why not Café Oat Bran? I kept quiet about the name, but no way was I going to pass up on the plastic orange chairs, silver seat cushions, and a waiter who failed Hair Combing 101. The food was served on metal trays and plates that must have come from an Army surplus store. Café Farina should have been closed by the SoHo neighborhood association long before it opened.

  Donna tosses the wrapper from her straw at me, “So what do you think of this place?”

  “So, this place uh?”

  “Yes, this place!”

  “Not bad...could use some...you know...some...Donna, I know this is my first time in the City with you, but this place is serving Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks. Really, these are Mrs. Paul’s, and their not even the crunchy ones.”

  “This is my favorite place Dave,” sad eyes and all, “I thought you would like it!”

  “Are you putting me on? You don’t like this place...do you? I’m really sorry, I’ll stop criticizing.”

  “Good!” laughing, “Cause this place is to haute cuisine, what finger painting monkeys are to art.”

  Okay the jokes on me and Donna has taught me what this friendship was going to be like. “Had you going there, didn’t I, Davie?”

  “Yes, Donna. You need to play to a tougher audience. Remind me to take you to a Waffle House at two-thirty in the morning.”

  “Been there.”

  “On prom night?”

  “After a wedding in my bridesmaids dress. You?”

  “After a formal at a small women’s college. While drunk?”

  “No, I was only seventeen, but does serious face smushing to the point of falling off the stools count for extra points?”

  “You weren’t drunk?”

  “We were drunk on love! You?”

  “Did not keep count.”

  “Drunk or smushed faces?”

  "You don’t admit it, I don’t admit it!”

  “Hiding something Dave?”

  “Smushed passed face once in the parking lot.”

  “No points, has to be inside.”

  “We got caught in the head lights of a friend’s car.”

  “OK, but only this time because I have more points for falling off the stool.”

  “How soon did you get up off the floor?”

  “When the manager started yelling at us to break contact.”

  “Okay, you win.”

  “You give up too easily.”

  “No, I just don’t like your poker face, and the only time you ever fell off a bar stool was probably when you were four, eating breakfast at home!”

  “My sister pushed me, and I was five, or six. Want to play poker for money?”

  “Not with you.”

  “We did fall on the floor...I made up the part about being yelled at. I embarrassed my friends.”

  “So what? I’m sure your friends have embarrassed you. It’s all in the process of growing up. The point is we finally recognized that we embarrassed ourselves.”

  “You’re so damn odd. You know that? This morning you...forget it.”

  The conversation that night did not get any more sophisticated.

  Over the course of our friendship I had learned a lot about Donna. She was born in Lansing, Michigan; then, when she was five, her dad got transferred back to Bridgeport, Connecticut, near the rest of the clan. Like me, Donna had been sneaking off to New York City to party since age sixteen. She talked about how she also missed the old places, parties that filled entire hotel floors, her first Rangers game, Central Park, art galleries, and more settled things like her university life and first job. Our lives had more in common than we wanted to admit. Where we differed was my camping, caving, and affinity for pickup trucks. She drew the line at trucks. Maybe she would descend into the earth just to see how dirty and wet she could get, or spend a cold night in a sleeping bag (I told her she could share mine for warmth, “in your dreams”), even go on long hikes with me; but she would not give up a leath
er-seated sedan for even a leather-seated pick-up.

  “You bring a good credit card?”

  “Yes, am I really going to need it?”

  “Yes. Did you bring a suit?”

  “Yes mom.”

  “Don’t get cute with me. I did not sell my soul for these two tickets to the hottest show on Broadway for you to get cute with me. I treat tonight, you PAY tomorrow.”

  We went to the theater and had a late dinner, real food, at an Irish place just off Broadway, and talked some more. When the night was saying adieu, Donna went back to the hotel with me; as planned, she got the bed and I got the floor. That was the deal and I am grateful we kept it.

  Saturday morning started with a good greasy breakfast at Grand Central, back to Donna’s so she could change and then show me around her neighborhood. We changed clothes for the evening, and at seven we were in a cab going to a restaurant on the West Side near the Park. From the outside the place was not pretentious, almost nondescript; but inside it was plush, description complete. The food and service, even the mints at the entrance, were astronomically good. A small combo played in the background and they seemed to weave their soft melodies into the mood like a box kite riding air currents. Donna relished the meal, the attention the waiters gave to us, and most of all she enjoyed sharing the experience with me.

  We talked serious conversation; not heavy serious, but proper moment serious. Donna wanted to know about my writing, my thoughts on avant-garde theater, my job, my life as an individual away from the “dumb shits” I was with when we met. We talked about our love life and housing options. Donna told me about why she liked history; where she planned to go for her vacation; and about her sister, who lived in California.

  The dinner was an easy, slow affair; we were not hurried by the establishment, the mood, or our own expectations. And when the time came to leave, we stood close to each other while the doorman hailed us a cab. I put my arm around Donna’s waist and gave her a friendly squeeze. She laughed and gave me a bump on the hips, took my hand in hers and pulled my hug a little tighter and informs me that, “now you’ve got me as a friend forever, you know that don’t you?”

  I squeeze, “Apparently, but do you know what you’re getting into?”

  “I knew the moment we met at Nancy's wedding. I just wish we could have lived in the same neighborhood while growing up.”

  “Would not have worked, aside from the fact the six years difference in our ages would have landed me in jail when I turned eighteen. You were on good behavior tonight, no sixteen letter words, no contradicting me...‘Dave you’re wrong’...you’re quite the lady tonight, but neighborhood buddies? Naaa, we would have been arch rivals, like Cat Woman is to Batman.” Donna laughed, “One day you’re going to look back on this night and thank your lucky stars!” Of course Donna was right. To this day I remember being with Donna on that trip as if it were just hours ago.

  Our next stop was a jazz club that had the best Scotch and great music. Donna likes jazz and of all the stories I have shared with her of my chaotic life she is jealous of only one experience. It was early evening, a mild summer evening, and I was walking near Times Square when I heard through an open door someone playing trumpet like it was the voice of heaven; standing outside, I got to listen to Dizzy Gillespie for two sets.

  When we left the club around 3:00 AM, I told Donna that she really knew how to plan an evening. It was a cab ride to Donna’s, then one to my hotel. We said our goodbyes over the phone late that morning before I drove home and sought out a bank loan to pay the tab.

  Thankfully, Donna had walked into my life and stayed. We matured as grownups together, giving each other encouragement and support. Donna could open the door to my inner thoughts and turn on the light to my brain. She made me look at myself like a stranger sees me, to see who I was, and she stood by me when my confidence was shaken. I have tried to do the same for her.

  I think it was the first time we went camping, soon after the trip to New York City that finally set our relationship.

  When we pulled into the parking area she looked around and asked where the inn was. “This is a campground, a state park, no indoor facilities.”

  “Wait...what do you mean no indoor facilities?” a tone of panic creeping into her voice, “You mean no restaurant, but indoor plumbing, right?”

  “If you want indoor plumbing you’ll have to find a cave.”

  “You...you...you...”

  “I got the ‘you’ part,” not going to let her off that easy.

  “DAVE, WHAT THE HELL KIND OF PLACE IS THIS!”

  “A campground; tents, sleeping bags, campfires, roasting marshmallows, and you and me bonding.”

  “Bonding my ass! When you said camping I thought summer camp camping, with buildings and such.”

  “Have I ever let you down?”

  “Yes!”

  “Let me rephrase that, have I ever treated you badly?”

  “YES!”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes,” the shock broken, “You have to remember I’m from Connecticut. The closest I have ever come to sleeping in the woods was at a girl's summer camp; we had log cabin bunkhouses and real beds.”

  “Are you worried about something, something other than using the great outdoors to go potty; cause I know you have before, you told me about soccer practices.”

  “I...I don’t like snakes, alright,” soft, but trusting to tell me.

  “No jokes. I’ll respect that. I want you to enjoy camping. Okay?”

  “Alright, I’m sorry about being so melodramatic.”

  Regardless of what she said, as I unpacked the truck, and Donna saw the camping gear for the first time, she did not exactly smile, “Sleeping bags?”

  “Yes, and there are two of them. What are you looking for?”

  “Cots.”

  “Sorry, we get to sleep on mother earth.”

  We set up the tent and gathered wood for a fire. Then we took a short hike through the forest. The path was wide enough for three, but Donna was so close to me a truck could have driven past without her feeling the breeze. When we reached the place I wanted her to see, the place where the path rounds a bend, breaks through the trees and opens on to a hilltop that looks out over the valley below, Donna said, “Beautiful, absolutely beautiful!” It was a breathtaking view; I knew it would be.

  Later, sitting by the fire watching our barbeque chicken breasts slowly cook, Donna asked if we were going to sing camp songs. “Depends on how far away the next campsite is. Don’t want to scare them away by my singing.”

  “Dave, the words you uttered when the tent fell down was enough to scare them away.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “You should be!”

  That night Donna and I tried to keep the conversation upbeat and non-serious. However around ten, the wine bottle was half empty. We discussed relationships. I remember telling her that relationships had to be built on trust. I talked about being able to rely on the person next to you; in the Army, descending on a rope in a cave, or walking into a strange bar in backwoods wherever. Years later when my marriage was faltering she would remind me of that conversation. “Dave, remember when you told me about why you stopped spelunking? You said that one member of the group could not maintain focus on the belaying line; you needed to have confidence in the person doing his job. Marriage is a partnership that requires the same kind of trust.”

  We spent Friday and Saturday nights in the woods. We hiked Saturday, stopping at a waterfall, getting soaked in a water fight. Throughout the weekend we told each other stories about our lives. Donna informed me that a week after she learned to drive she wrecked the car by sideswiping a wall. I told about one day in Diver Ed I pulled up to an intersection to make a right turn and because of a hedge and a parked truck I was not able to see the traffic coming from the left, so I gunned it. My Driver Ed teacher tried to wedge his 5’-6”, 230+ pound body un
der the dashboard. At the after prom party she lost her shoes. At least she remembered her date’s name.

  Like on my first visit to New York City to see her, I know we laughed at these stories because we were able to laugh at ourselves for the stupid things in our past. Our story swapping was not for pride, it was confessional. When I met my future wife, Donna cautioned me to keep my stupidest stories to myself. Sometimes I wondered if keeping these ‘words’ to my personality bottled up kept her from fully knowing who I was. I would hint now and then. But we began moving within a conservative world and my youthful exploits (regardless of how old I was before I left ‘youth’) were too far a field for most of the people I met.

  Even Donna would only accept so much. She may have drank too much as a teenager, and smushed faces at a Waffle House, but she never went to the extreme like me. Regardless of how Donna felt about my youth and early adulthood, she recognized that I might laugh on the outside at my antics, but I deeply regretted them.

  One day I finally recognized that Breen knew me while I was still immersed in that life. She may not have known about the worst of my hidden past, but she felt the 'roughness' in the hands that held her. I only wished that she had read the lifelines, because I was different from the other men in her life. Just lacking the maturity to live the way I knew I was capable of.

  As I was putting the last piece of camping gear into the truck, “I trusted you to look out for me on this camping trip, you did, thanks Dave. BUT, next time we go to a place that has showers, indoor plumbing, at least cots, a snack bar with fresh coffee...”

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